I love this video. It is a great glimpse of one family’s experience of a simple outing with a child on the autism spectrum. (The mom is one of my favorite bloggers – she writes about their family’s experiences of living with autism.)
Every autistic person is different and reacts to things differently, but I think this kind of awareness and acceptance is important. You would not believe the number of judgmental stares we’ve received over the years when our daughter was having a meltdown (NOT the same as a tantrum) because of her sensory difficulties when out in public.
We used to have to avoid certain places (like Dairy Queen with its loud blenders that would go off at unexpected times) because of how difficult it was for Bree. Or, if we had plans to go to the mall but decided to make an unplanned stop at another store on the way TO the mall, Bree would walk into the store and upon realizing it was not the mall as she expected, she would throw herself down on the floor because she was overwhelmed (to receive the pressure of the floor on her whole body as a sensory coping mechanism while also blocking out the things that were overwhelming.) Actually, she used to do this throw herself down on the floor coping mechanism even when we went places she was looking forward to going, such as her grandparents’ houses.
Both Bree (and Greg and I as her parents) have learned a lot over the years on how we can help her navigate this busy, crowded, loud, and smelly world full of unexpected changes. Unexpected smells or noises are still hard for her, but at least we don’t have to leave businesses as often because of a meltdown. And I cannot remember the last time she’s thrown herself to the ground. She still has a hard time with loud, unexpected noises (e.g. fire alarms, microphone feedback) and those may still cause her to scream to block it out. And we are still working on her loud exclamations over smells, such as last week when she smelled cigarette smoke on someone’s clothes and announced, “What is that YUCKY smell? It’s ‘isgusting!'” Though sometimes those smell comments make me laugh, even when they are embarrassing! (Sorry to the lady in Target who passed gas in the aisle where my daughter then proceeded to announce it to the entire store. Haha!)